Is Virtual Reality the Future of Web Browsing?

By now, you know that virtual reality isn’t just for gaming. It has a lot of applications. And now that we have powerful standalone headsets with built-in web browsers, our future leads us to a future of virtual web browsing.

Let’s look at the newly launched and much awaited Oculus Quest (formerly Santa Cruz). The new $399 wireless headset will work even without a powerful PC. It’s mainly designed for games, but it also features a wide range of apps and a web browser.

When Quest comes out next year, we imagine a lot of people searching and viewing a lot of VR content straight from the headset.

Firefox Reality isn’t the only virtual reality browser available today (there are a lot!), but Mozilla is the first mainstream browser developer to launch a VR browser.

According to Andre Vrignaud, their head of mixed reality platform strategy, their team received a warm early response since they released the app for last September. Their team used the number of downloads and public’s comments on about the app as the basis for this comment.

From the flat screen to the VR headset

Looking at the interface of this web browser, we can see that Vrignaud’s team took the made something a lot different than the regular Firefox browser. In this immersive web browser, the text input and the search results look more modern.

But, the interface isn’t the best part.

Like the regular browser in your phone, you can do a voice search in Firefox Reality. This feature speeds up the web browsing experience.

To keep people hooked with Firefox Reality, Mozilla makes sure that the app offers the user fresh VR content. They partner with multiple 3D/VR content creators who wish to include their content in the ongoing web platform investment activities. Mozilla even highlights the best VR content on the user’s feed.

Takeaway

Mozillaand other web browser developers are on their way to make keyboardless searching possible. VR web browsing is still in its early stages. But, thanks to powerful VR headsets and creative virtual web browsing apps, we can experience it. In the near future, when the immersive media industry establishes standards, there will be more VR web content available. It will also be available to a wider group of people.